Prologue
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Twilight held her books close to her as she walked down the hallway of Crystal Prep, trying to do everything she could to remain unnoticed, dodging and weaving around everyone else.
Thankfully, with the Friendship Games six weeks away, all the other students were focused on that and their desire to crush Canterlot High School.
Twilight had never really understood why it mattered so much to defeat CHS in the games. Sure, she understood winning was a great feeling… bad her school had always seemed to want more than just to win: they wanted Canterlot High to feel miserable that they lost to Crystal Prep, taking every opportunity to remind them of it.
What was the point? What was there to gain in shaming a school that always lost for losing as if were something new?
Her train of thought was halted when her eyes caught something in her periphery.
Glancing to her right, she realized it was the school’s notice board. On it were the usual things: Tryout for teams, notifications of changes that would be implemented, reminders of upcoming events, that kind of thing.
However, what caught her eye was a big green symbol, the one for Everton Independent Study Program
Moving closer, Twilight’s eyes lit up. Everton was offering scholarships. Applicants had to send in a unique field of study and the best ones would be given scholarships to the university itself.
She scrabbled to get a paper and pen, dropping everything in her arms in her hast.
Blushing, she quickly wrote down the details, before grabbing her things, doing her best to ignore the looks of her fellow students and hurried down the hall to her personal study.
Well, it was technically an unused storage room, but Dean Cadance had convinced Principal Cinch to let her use it due to how many of Twilight’s previous accomplishments had gotten the school so many grants.
Entering her study, Spike was stretching on the chair by her computer. He quickly hopped down, hurrying over, barking excitedly.
“Okay, okay,” the speckled girl giggled, putting her things on her desk and bending down, picking the dog up and setting him on her lap.
She reached over, taking the paper she’d written the Everton details on.
“This is my big chance, Spike,” she looked down to the dog, who smiled up at her. “Everton are looking for new applicants. If I can find something amazing to show them, I’ll get in and I can finally have all the time I need to focus on my maths and science projects. What could be better?”
The dog just cocked his head.
Twilight smiled, scratching him behind the ears, before she narrowed her eyes, turning to the board of diagrams, equations, photos and outlines that had been forming over the last few weeks.
Holding Spike, she got up and went over, her eyes moving over the board.
“I know exactly what I’m going to send in, Spike. Whatever’s going on at that school, it isn’t normal. If I can figure out it, not only could it get me into Everton, but who knows what good I can do for the rest of the world.”
Twilight spent the rest of the day filing her application, before setting to reanalysing the data she had so far collected, continuing her analysis at home.
Since a few weeks ago, some bizarre, as best she could call them, E.M. frequencies had been happening at Canterlot High.
They didn’t seem dangerous, at least as far as her studies had shown, but they were very unique. In all her researching, she’d found nothing to compare the types of energy to.
She had noticed an odd pattern, however.
There was evidence this E.M. waves had been happening for far longer, but only during specific times.
They’d mostly gone unnoticed, so the information was scarce, but, after her first week of studying the waves, she started being able to notice things others clearly weren’t: phrases and timings that were seen as normal, everyday oddities.
The first thing she’d realized is the bizarre energy was always present, since Canterlot’s founding centuries ago.
The energy had always shown up within a four year time period. The early settlers had called it magic, what with science being so infantile back then.
However, as the centuries had worn on, the energy always seemed to return, exactly every four years and only for three days.
After that, the energy and all evidence of it completely vanished, as if, well, Twilight had to laugh, like magic.
Still, magic? Nonsense. No, this was scientific in some way. She just had to figure out how.
It was interesting that, if not for recent events, she never would’ve gotten very far with her studies on the matter.
Originally, she’d included the odd energy readings as part of a historical essay she’d been written, thinking nothing of it.
That was, however, until she’d gotten another reading.
Due to having been distracted by other projects she was trying to complete, Twilight hadn’t taken the energy reader apart. She’d only made the thing to study the energy when it arrived at its assigned date and, like clockwork, it had. Exactly four years to the last mentions of anything to associate with the energy.
So, imagine her surprise when the device had gone off again, merely a few days after the third day had passed.
Obviously, this was not normal. None of her findings had suggested anything about the energy returning again early. It had always been consistent.
So, for the energy to suddenly return without warning, mere days after it was supposed to have gone away?
How was Twilight supposed to resist studying that?
It could have had something to do with the readings of this year’s period of the energy having been thousands of times more powerful than it had in centuries.
What was the cause? Was the unscheduled return due to an excess of energy being left behind? What had caused such a massive surge in the first place?
Like bees to honey, this unexpected change had drawn Twilight in.
Her studies showed that, since the second surge, the energy was remaining. Granted, it wasn’t in as huge bursts as the two surges, but they were there.
The energy readings never stopped, fluctuating from time to time, going through mini surges.
Something had definitely changed since several weeks ago, though, despite every theory she tried, Twilight couldn’t put her finger on what had caused it.
The only things she’d been able to truly gleam from the matter was that the two surges had coincided with events Canterlot High had been holding: CHS’ Fall Formal and a Battle of the Bands contest.
This didn’t exactly help, as there was no way the events were connected to the surges. The idea was absurd.
Twilight lifted her glasses, rubbing her eyes.
Turning, she glanced to her digital clock and blinked.
“It’s 9:15pm already? Where’d the time go?”
Looking around her room, she spotted Spike sprawled out on her bed, snoring.
She giggled, before yawning and stretching. Maybe it was time she went to bed too.
She could continue her analysis tomorrow. It was the weekend, after all.
Deciding to have a quick snack before bed, she headed downstairs.
The house was quiet. Her parents were out for the next two days, visiting friends and Shining had already moved out years ago.
Twilight giggled to herself. She was going to be an aunt soon. At her age.
Opening the fridge, she scanned its contents for something to eat, when she paused, lifting her head, glancing around.
Strange. I could’ve sworn… She shrugged. Must’ve been the wind.
Shaking her head, she return to the fridge, before her head shot up at a suddenly sound.
It… it sounded like a baby wailing… and it sounded oddly familiar.
Barking from upstairs was followed by Spike bounding down the steps and hurrying to the door.
Twilight moved to follow, it not escaping her notice and always worrying her that the crying was getting louder the closer to the door she got.
Spike was pawing at the door and jumping up, whimpering.
Making sure to keep Spike back so he didn’t go running out the door, Twilight opened the door and glanced around only for a second, before her head turned down, the same moment the wailing stopped… along with her brain.
Twilight just stared down at what was before her, her mind refusing to comprehend what she was seeing.
Sitting on her family’s doorstep was a simple cardboard box. Nothing special about it. Just your average brown box.
It was what was in the box that was causing her brain to grind to a halt.
Sitting in the open box, forelimbs over the edge, looking up at her in confused pleading was what looked like a baby pony. But… it wasn’t a normal pony. For one, it was the same colour as her skin, but, most glaringly, it had what looked like a horn atop its head and wings on its side.
“I… but… wha?”